Aesthetics, while always somewhat peripheral to Western philosophy, has always been at the center of Indian philosophy. It is therefore essential, if one wants to understand debates in Indian philosophy, to attend to Indian aesthetic theory. Moreover, because of this centrality, Indian aesthetic theory has evolved in continuous debate over millennia into a sophisticated and contested body of theory. It is therefore a rich source of aesthetic insight for anyone interested in aestheticsper se.

Indian aesthetic theory differs in its orientation from much Western aesthetic theory in certain respects. First, while most Western aestheticians take the core cases of art to be enduring visible objects such as painting or sculpture, Indian aesthetic theory takes as its primary analytical category the idea ofrasa,a term sometimes translated astasteor asessenceor asaesthetic emotion,with important debates concerning the number ofrasa-s, their relationship to more transient or subsidiary emotions (bhāva-s), and whetherrasais properly located in the work of art itself or in therasika(the aesthetic subject).

The Aesthetic and Philosophy of Art in MOOCs is an extensive research resource to the learners of Asian aesthetics. This unique course reflects the very best scholarship in creative, analytic, and comparative philosophy.

In this course we are talking about the theories that are known to us we have to mainly focus on the Indian theories, which is our own theories, then the Western theories which is a very very rich tradition and the third tradition is Far-Eastern tradition.

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Course Syllabus & Schedule

Faculty

Deepak Kannal

Prof. (Dr.) Deepak Kannal is a practicing sculptor and an Art Historian. He has a number of National level awards, scholarships and distinctions including the ‘Charles Wallace fellowship’ for his post doctoral project at Cambridge, UK, The National Lalit Kala commendation, Gujarat Lalitkala awards for sculpture, A.P. Council Biennale award and the Gujarat Gaurav as well as the Raja Ravi Verma Puraskar. He has curated sculpture shows in India and US and has participated in several important shows.

He has organized and has participated in a number of International and National level seminars and has a long list of Publications including two books, a monograph, five co-edited volumes and three journals to his credit. He has also published more than 75 papers and articles in different periodicals and compendiums. He has written and staged three full length plays, four dance dramas, a few one act plays and two TV serials. He has delivered series of lectures for prestigious institutes in India, US and UK and was invited on a number of Chairs instituted by various Universities, Academies and Museums.

He taught in the Dept. of Art History and Aesthetics and also was the Head of the department, coordinator, UGC DSA program and the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He has worked on several prestigious bodies and committees of various institutions, Govt. Of India, University Grants Commission and a number of Universities. He is engaged in active research in Art History and Aesthetics and renders his services to academic institutes as a visiting faculty all over the country. He lives and works at Vadodara.